Nuclear startup Last Energy raises $100M for its steel-encased micro reactor

Summary

After years in the wilderness, it’s a good time to be a nuclear startup. “For the first half a decade that I was telling people I was doing nuclear, I had to convince them, ‘Hey, here’s why nuclear is important,’” Bret Kugelmass, founder and CEO of Last Energy, told TechCrunch. “Now everyone just comes to us saying, ‘Oh yeah, of course nuclear is a key part of the solution.’ I’m like, okay, great, I’m glad everyone’s caught up now.” Last Energy is building small modular reactors — compact nuclear power plants that can be mass-manufactured to reduce costs. The company’s reactors are designed to produce 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 15,000 homes. It has momentum. Last Energy just closed a $100 million Series C led by the Astera Institute with participation from AE Ventures, Galaxy Fund, Gigafund, JAM Fund, The Haskell Company, Ultranative, Woori Technology, and others. The company joins a slew of nuclear startups that have raised funding in recent months, buoyed by data centers’ insatiable power demands. Google-backed X-Energy raised $700 million last month, while Antares raised $96 million two weeks ago. And in August, Aalo Atomics raised $100 million to build its prototype reactor. What sets Last Energy apart from competitors is its approach: the company is using an old reactor design developed by the government decades ago. The initial design for the pressurized water reactor was built for the NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship. That ship’s power plant was about one-tenth the size of Last Energy’s planned commercial reactor. Kugelmass said the company’s updated design should produce 20 megawatts of electricity. The company is starting smaller, though. First, Last Energy is building a 5-megawatt pilot reactor at a site it’s leasing from Texas A&M. The new funding will fully fund the pilot project and help the company start delivering its first commercial products, Kugelmass said. Last Energy hopes to turn on the pilot...